Review of the 2-Wire 2700HGV (BT Business Hub)

This DSL gateway is supplied with some of the BT business broadband packages. It's manufactured by 2-wire (whose products are only sold via ISPs) and the firmware is customised and branded by BT. It isn't available for open sale through official sources, but is often offered for sale new and boxed on eBay. As supplied the 2700HGV is locked to BT and can't be used with other ISPs without a little trickery.

Construction

The 2700HGV is solidly constructed, and quite large compared to most popular domestic routers. It has a metal mesh at the top and bottom, and ventilation slots on the sides, so it remains quite cool in use. A stand is supplied, permitting the router to be mounted vertically. It gives an impression of better than average quality.

Unlocking the 2700HGV

There is a wealth of information about this here, in fact so much that it may be a bit overwhelming. With the current version (firmware version 6.1.1.48.1-enh.tm) any attempt to change the login details to a different ISP will result in a message that the PPP username is invalid. To overcome this, go to the hidden page http://192.168.1.254/xslt?PAGE=HURL13 . Here you can freely change the login details to another ISP. More details on this firmware version are here.

One slight concern with this router is that the firmware is capable of being updated remotely by BT, without the user's knowledge or co-operation. At present there is no known way of inhibiting this with recent versions of the router, so there's no way of knowing what may change in it in the future.

Performance

The 2700HGV has a reputation for very good performance on long lines, and also for excellent wireless performance. Following a recent discussion here the question was raised about its performance on more average length lines. I thought I would give it a try on my 41 dB line.

It's now been running for a week, and all I can really say is that it's so stable it's almost boring. My target noise margin is currently 12 dB, and it stays at that level all through the hours of daylight, then drops to about 8 dB during the night, and returns to 12 dB the next day. The sync speed is about 200 kbps higher that the DG834GT achieves under the same conditions. Error levels are very low, about 10 ES per hour.

I can't comment on the wireless performance, apart from saying that it works reliably throughout my middling sized house.

Routerstats Lite works out of the box with this router, and the full Routerstats program can be persuaded to work with it, with a bit of fiddling.

Tweaking

Unfortunately there seem to be no tweaking capabilities in this router, but just the normal configuration items in its web interface. There is no telnet (or ssh) interface by default, and no known way of enabling one.

Conclusion

After a week of use, I would say that this is the best performing router out of many which I've tried on my fairly average line. It isn't a choice for someone who wants to tweak the ADSL parameters, because it doesn't appear to have this capability. It's a fit-and-forget choice for someone who simply wants a solid reliable connection.

--------Acknowledgement.

This article was kindly written by Roseway
If you wish to discuss any content then you can do so on the forum here.
11-11-09